Five Reasons Why The Old Republic Is a Threat to WoW Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 NEXT | |
Holy fucking shit... | |
Saying that I bought MW2 on release day for £27. I probably play 9 hours a week 27/9=£3 per hour on week one. This number gets smaller each week that goes by being £1.50 the second week carrying on until it must be pennys now. It depends on which games you play. I have completed Mass effect at least 7 times. I more than got my moneys worth. I love Bioware games but I have one reservation about a Starwars MMO. In a world where anyone can be a jedi I can imagine there being more jedi's (is that the correct plural for jedi?) than none jedi. This would kill my immersion when everyone and their dog has a light saber. Wouldn't that kill some of what made jedi cool for you? It would for me. Plus Im tired of jedi constantly throwing spins and flips. Just fight already. They never did it in my day (grumble). | |
Well, just as long as the game doesn't feel like a grind, it'll have a chance. | |
A very good article, John. My inner Bioware fanboy is pleased. | |
I agree, Star Wars is definitely fantasy. People should remember that a space setting does not mean something is automatically sci-fi. Similarly, you can have sci-fi in what appears to be a fantasy setting. Point 3 remains valid though, as it is offering a completely different style of setting to WoW. | |
#5 - Lightsabers: Fwp-shhhhsssss... wronnnn, worrrarrang. Wrorr-K-SHH! K-SHHkrilkrklkkrlk, wrooonn, wroaonng. I think that point speaks for itself. Jesus christ I laughed. | |
The plural of Jedi is Jedi, as in "Return of the Jedi". You know, it really bothers me when people cite "lore" or "immersion" to make the argument for why having lots of Jedi in a game is a bad thing - it just proves the speaker knows very little about the franchise. The concept of a Star Wars universe with very few Jedi is actually a recent development in the plot of the original trilogy, with all but a handful of the Jedi having been killed off in Vader's purges shortly after the Emperor assumed command. (This was mildly retconned with Order 66, but only by a few in-world weeks. As far as we know, the Purges still happened even after Order 66 was carried out. It's unrealistic with a side of prequel-trilogy-George-Lucas to believe the clones were able to get everyone on that particular day.) At the height of the Old Republic, there were tons of Jedi, since every Force-sensitive kid in the known parts of the galaxy was picked up and shipped off to the Temple at an early age. For an Old-Republic-era MMO, a bunch of Jedi running around waving their lightsabers won't be at all out of place from a lore standpoint. | |
I don't know--it doesn't seem so much a threat to WoW as something different enough to be an appealing product in its own right. Like, given the choice between the two, I'd expect a lot of MMO fans to play both, I'd expect Bioware fans to favor The Old Republic, and I'd expect WoW veterans to favor WoW. People talk about one game's sales or another threatening another's, but ten to one says that just because someone bought Bayonetta it doesn't mean they're not going to buy God of War III or Dante's Inferno. Variety's a good thing. Anyway, with the kind of time WoW's had to build its player base it's not just going to go away overnight. People have been working on their characters and running with their guilds for years, and you don't just turn your back on that kind of a commitment. | |
As someone who has played every MMO since Ultima Online, I remain skeptical. Every. Single. MMO. to date. has used the same "our game is different" hype. While EA, Bioware, and Star Wars may seem like a holy trinity, need I remind you what happened with EA, Mythic, and Warhammer? Or even Sony, LucasArts, and Star Wars? 100% voiced questing is a mixed bag as well. How many people playing WoW do you think actually read quest text before taking a quest? Do you think that same bunch of people will appreciate having to sit through voice-acting before they can continue their climb to level cap uber status? I fear SW:TOR will just be more of the same. So far there's nothing to dissuade me otherwise. I'm still hoping, though. | |
I'm actually looking forward to this, but I'm trying not to get too excited because I detest MMOs and a large amount of RPGs. The reason it might appeal to me is the setting, and the fact that while I didn't think the combat was the best (Turn based = Meh) I loved KoTOR and BioWare makes some of the few RPGs I really can lose myself in. Also, before I get attacked for saying I detest MMOs and World of Warcraft in particular, I'm not one of those people who says "Everyone who plays MMOs is a fat nerd blob thing with no life" I'm simply saying I detest the game because I tried it and was bored out of my gourd within 1 hour. | |
Nothing will ever put a single dent in WoW's monolithic marketshare. And no, I'm as much a fan of that game as a fundie Christian is a qualified scientist. | |
I laughed out loud at the last one. "It has lightsabres!" Please. I've observed enough WoW junkies at work to know that they wouldn't go to another game unless the top tier raid reward was pure cocaine delivered to your door. One of them recently announced to me his intention to quit WoW for this game when it comes out, and then altered that to his intention to just quit WoW altogether. A week later he was back on it. Why? "Because this new patch is awesome!" For a tortured analogy, see The Simpsons "Lisa vs Malibu Stacey" episode. "Wait! Don't be fooled! It's just the same Stacey with a cheap plastic accessory! She still embodies the same sexist values as before!" Get used to it, WoW is here to stay. In a way I'm kind of glad: that's 14 million-ish people who won't be competing against me in the literary marketplace. | |
Funk, just ask yourself what you normally do in WoW when you see an unsuspecting player from the other faction with a PVP flag on that is your lvl or lower. If your answer is "smite him down immediately" id say you go with the Sith XD i really hope its PVP all the time. Star Wars always felt like a space western where everyone is out to get you. so be nice to stroll around as a sith/jedi killing other unsuspecting jedi/sith...and whatever other classes are there in SWTOR XD p.s. Go Blizzard! i don't like WoW but its making my favorite development company rich so im happy about that. ::Eagerly awaits the arrival of the RTS Messiah:: | |
Not from me, that's for sure. I'm a huge fan of WoW and a proponent of it's continued success. I never once thought any of those games would ever pose a remote threat to WoW. Don't get me wrong - anyone who thinks that I'm saying "SWTOR WILL KILL WOW RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE" here really needs to reread it. Of course WoW is still going to have its very comfortable hill, and I don't doubt people will play both (I sure will). This article was just discussing whether or not TOR could make a dent in WoW's monolithic marketshare, and the things it has going for it.
Like I said, I know full well WoW is here to stay and as a fan I'm very glad of it. :P (To be fair to your coworker, 3.3 brought a TON of new and awesome changes that are a bit better than "She's got a new hat.") | |
IMHO, the only thing that will topple WoW is people growing naturally bored with it. I see this coming about as the engine ages and people see features or advances in other, less popular MMOS that they prefer. So I envision WoW's demise as less of A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES and more of a war of attrition. With little, innovative MMOs swarming it like Lilliputians. TOR could very well be one of these. | |
Agreed. For added underdog-ness, I'm probably going to use Smuggler. Really make those sith teenagers weep. | |
Thank you for clearing up the Jedi plural grey area. I was born in 1980. The first three films are starwars for me. I watched the first of the prequels and was so dissapointed I never bothered to watch the next 2. All the same in a galaxy of billions of people there should be more none jedi than jedi. I don't see this being the case in an MMO. | |
My thoughts exactly, Bounty hunters can own jedi any day of the week. | |
Awesome as it looks, as much as I loved knights 1 and 2, I just can't make myself care about this game. I quit WoW for a reason, I imagine I won't want to play TOR for the same one. I don't like playing an RPG in which I have to depend on others to advance the "story" if you can really call it that. | |
I really hope they get the combat right. I just hate that clunky feeling. | |
Trailer? meh. Overhype. Its actually the only MMO im interested in. I will take some time to check it out. Why? Because its futuristic-ish. I hope its not just another bland, boring overhyped grind-fest.. because WoW is exactly that imo. And i hope that i can play it for free online, if i cant in a way or another, i wont bother with the game. | |
You forgot the sixth reason. It's Bioware. Bio-freakin-WARE! I have not played a Bioware-made game that I wouldn't love. | |
Whether this game topples WoW or not, I'm still expecting it to do well. Embarassingly, I didn't know anything about WoW until I started playing Guild Wars, and while it was never the MMO killer they wanted it to be, I still spend WAY too much time on that game. TOR will be the same. If it topples WoW it will be coincidental, but people will still flock to it simply because it will be awesome. | |
While I usually run to whatever has magical powers, kotor made me dislike Jedi in general. I wonder if you'll be able to play a droid bounty hunter like IG-88 or HK-47... | |
I dont think its comes down to whats cheaper as such, for me personally I have to make a chioce with MMO's, due to my own reasoning I cant justify paying for 2 MMO's when, the games being what they are, time eaters, I only have time to play one. For example when SW:TOR hits, I'll freeze my WoW sub, as I aint paying for it when it wont be played, if TOR sucks, (highly unlikely) then I'll cancell my sub and crawl back to WoW, weeping apologies, like the WarCrack addict I am. Also I just died a little inside hearing I MAY have to wait till 2011 for this game, it's like EA just cancelled christmas. Its far too early to tell, I think its gonna be prudent to wait till at least E3 to get a more accurate release date. | |
You look like Rob Riggle. Also World Of Warcraft is our generation's Star Wars. | |
I think its just Jedi singular and Jedi plural. | |
The fact that each side has unique classes could damage KOTROS pretty badly. It took WoW some time, but having Paladins and Shaman side specific turned out to be a poor decision on their part and they corrected the problem. I don't see any good way KOTSWR could twist the lore to free up class selection. Also their acronym is too long and doesn't market as well as WOW. I do want a game to dethrone/damage WoW so that Blizzard has an excuse to make something truly better, but I doubt KOTRROP will do it. | |
Not a single one of those five points couldn't have been applied to the original Star Wars MMORPG. Now, granted, it came out before World of Warcraft, so it could be that a new market has opened up. Plus, they've learned lessons since then. But still. SW:G had money. (It was Sony backing it.) It had lightsabers. It had an existing fandom. And it flopped. Plus, and I'll sing this until the cows come home: If you want to peel off a major part of WoW's fanbase, you need to support mac, out of the box. Why? Because fans in WoW don't often peel off individually. They peel off in groups, in guilds. They move their community around, not themselves. And if you don't have mac support, then it's that much harder for any guild with a percentage of mac users to move. Which may well be what stops any of them from moving. | |
John, Jedi is going to be the way to go. Force lightning? We got healing, shielding, hasting, and mind trick. I dearly hope flurry is still a skill. | |
I do not doubt that it is possible to create a stealth class which a) is not grossly overpowered, b) is well balanced with other classes in PvP and c) remains a useful and fun class to play, as well as a beneficial addition to the party whether they're playing PvP or PvE. The Agent, as described, uses explosives and sniper attacks at range. I remain skeptical. This is the kind of attack that one would tend to suspect would be win/lose; either they kill their opponent, or their careful set-up and/or long charge time means they get their rear ends handed to them. Or alternatively, they make their massively powerful attack and the defender gets to spend half an hour searching for where it came from as they vanish in preparation for their next attack. None of these scenarios sounds like much fun for the defender- either you've just been killed, you're spending all your time hunting rather than engaging (possibly despite having to deal with the rest of the Agent's party), or you're dealing with a horsefly who doesn't really have a part in the battle but you can't quite be bothered to swat. Most of these scenarios don't really sound very enjoyable for the Agent, either. I would like to believe Bioware won't mis-step, but it bears remembering that they've never done an MMORPG before. MMORPGs that launch smoothly are a tiny minority. Even WoW, which by most accounts did a fabulous job, had its share of hitches along the way. Most of what I'm likely to say is going to fall under this: when I first heard about this game, I was entirely enthusiastic. "An MMO? With Bioware's passion for storytelling? In the same universe as their great KOTOR games? I want to be a part of this! I want to make a character who will have their own story! I want to see how their storytelling talents will work when players' stories intertwine with one another!" If they had been more a little more withholding in their info dumps and their media events, they'd actually be doing better in my expectations of this game. I recognize that anything that comes out before the players get a hold of the game has, by nature, to be an incomplete picture. I also understand that the very nature of MMORPGs is that player interaction can radically change the game, even moving it far from the designers' expectations of how it was going to be played. (It may well be that half the battle in a given MMORPG is how much the designers accept how the players are playing it and roll with it and how much they're willing to tinker, tweak, and nerf- possibly annoying the players in the process- in the name of getting something that looks more like the game they had on the drawing board.) But again, I had high hopes for this game from the outset based on the designers' work and the KOTOR games; it's what's been released to the public so far that has shown me how things may well go wrong, and the designers' relative immaturity in the field of MMOs makes it all the more likely that they won't realize things have gone wrong until well after launch.
No, I quite recognize this. CoH was quite late to the game in offering items that are actually items; most of them remain quite minor in their effects, and some regard it as one of the game's enduring weakness. I realize something new may well need to be offered; what I'm saying is that the source material doesn't offer much encouragement. It would definitely be an uphill battle to create a game where "loot" had little value; while I'd be curious if someone made a real stab at it, I wouldn't expect it of a big-budget mainsteam title. But if the movies offer little suggestion of loot, and the KOTOR games loot system is out-and-out lame, what are we being offered in their place? And more to the point, what are we being offered in their place that's functional, retains some of the source's flavor, and doesn't look like a carbon copy of one of the withering MMO offshoots?
I've barely dipped a foot in EU, true. It's certainly going to raise some eyebrows when Jedi start wandering about with more bling that a typical rapper, though.
At the risk of making myself a huge target for angry flaming, I'm going to venture a guess that most of WoW's community doesn't play it for the storyline. Oh, it's probably fun enough to be a part of, you'd miss it if it weren't there, but it also seems to be enormously derivative. Warcraft's storylines from the earliest games seem to serve mostly to get from A to B, if you don't squint too closely at the road. It may well be that not having a deeper knowledge of the game's lore is in some ways like a tightrope walker not looking down. Conversely, Bioware is known for writing reams of script, for trying to make you care about the characters and their paths, for investing worlds and people with enormous histories. And many of the people who are looking at this game now aren't looking to be "any" badass; they're looking to be Jedi or Sith. If there isn't a seamless connection between the world and the gameplay- or at least, sufficiently seamless that your suspension of disbelief will carry you past a few bare patches- the battle is theirs to lose. If the game has a familiarity that makes it easy to get into, all to the good. If it begins to look like half a dozen other MMORPGs with a thin coat of Star Wars frosting, people are going to notice. In particular, the early adopters are likely to wonder if that frosting is worth playing guinea pig to the inevitable glitches, storyline dead-ends, and rebalancing issues when there are plenty of games already on the market with their rough spots already smoothed off, including WoW. I've lost my enthusiasm for being the first one into the pool, perhaps with the attendant chance to gain the polishers' ears and make my own mark on the lore of the game, if not the lore of the world. It doesn't mean I wouldn't love to be proven wrong and start hearing that TOR really was like the third KOTOR game expanded into exponential multiplayer bliss. What I have seen is not encouraging to me, based on my experience and what I know of the facts at hand. I do not hold it against others for believing differently. Time will tell. | |
It's not an immediate threat to Wow if it doesn't come out TILL NEXT SPRING!! I'm sorry but that news made my little mmo-depraved heart burst with rage. Guess I'll be going back to Wow for another year.. or worse... getting round to prestiging on mw2... | |
Shhhh. You're taking one of my points for next week :( | |
On a whole I agree that it could be a WoW killer but I don't remember anyone saying Guild Wars 1 would be some are saying 2 could be but I hope it isn't as I don't an overly massive amount of people playing it. Sometimes when that happens the average community tends to suffer. Also if Light sabers count as a reason then Dual Kightsabers should count as another one:). [1] Spelling mistake should be thing sorry for being a grammar nazi | |
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This game wont rape WoW it will destroy most of the SCI FI mmorpgs outhere dough. Aion was called a WoW killer. you and I know now that was all bullshit. but it was still a nice game and in many aspects better than WoW. so what makes you think that a star wars based mmo is gonna do 100 times better just because its star wars?